Using FreeDOS is OK, having a longer command line than bare DOS,
so that command line length is no more a problem.
Gujin-1.0 tiny.exe was far from perfection, but since v1.1 you should
have support for long command line and v1.2 can load uncompressed
initrd (i.e. initramfs) on latest 2.6 kernels.

I assume that your error with the kernel is when Linux starts, and not
when you are trying to load the USB drivers from FreeDOS, even before
calling tiny.exe in the autoexec.bat.

I think you have to search a solution in the Linux kernel configuration,
because everything seems loaded correctly (the kernel has correctly
started), you can maybe check that the initrd is correctly recognised
by appending the "debug" on the command line and follow messages
on screen.

The big difference in between starting from a bootable CDROM
containning those vmlinuz and image.gz and starting from USB drive
is that the USB stack is active by the disk emulation and that may
create a problem somewhere in Linux USB drivers.
Check USB parameters and maybe EDD (extended BIOS disk)
parameter too.

You may want to check if those vmlinuz and image.gz are correct
by writing them either on a CDROM or on a current E2FS/E3FS or
FAT partition in the /boot directory to boot them using the complete
Gujin loader - for instance installed on a floppy. You then have to
rename them, something like vmlinuz-test and initrd-test.

With 1.0 - 1.2 gujin I don't get the command line arguments error (using same DOS and autoexec).

Ok, it's been years since I wrote batch files, but maybe you could set some DOS environment variables to be your parameters to tiny.exe, then use those environment variable names in the tiny.exe command line? Maybe this could get you around the command line length limitation?_________________Running Puppy 1.0.2 from 1gb Sandisk Cruzer Mini.

Joined: 18 May 2005Posts: 11132Location: The Peoples Republic of California

Posted: Tue 26 Jul 2005, 10:52 Post subject:

Quote:

Ok, it's been years since I wrote batch files, but maybe you could set some DOS environment variables to be your parameters to tiny.exe, then use those environment variable names in the tiny.exe command line? Maybe this could get you around the command line length limitation?

You can't fool dos with a varible, it counts the 'expanded' command line.

There is a workaround for these limits. Use the 4DOS shell, which is now free. It supports FreeDOS, MS-DOS and DR DOS. 4DOS supports 128 byte command strings.

But the shell is a lot to load from a floppy, somewhere around a 1/4 MB, and needs a memory manager like himem.sys.

I'm using the version of Tiny.exe that comes with the boot2pup image. It's version 0.8. I'm getting the error:

"Command Line Too Long, Truncated"

John Doe wrote:

I was going to try "wakepup" but that just calls tiny.exe also and I figure I'd have the same trouble.

I'm the guy that did the WAKEPUP boot disk, and your right: what I've done is to completely re-write the BOOT2PUP config.sys & autoexec.bat files to include drivers and support for more hardware before actually calling TINY.EXE and the same parameters that Barry used.

However, I think that I can help you anyway with the truncated command line. Somewhere in the Wiki (it doesn't seem to be searchable, and I can't seem to find the reference again ) someone, I think it was Lobster, explained about an improved TINY.EXE called LINLD.COM which overcomes the limited command line by using a separate file to hold the parameters.

This is something that I just discovered a couple of days ago and I've been testing it myself for, possibly, making a more flexible WAKEPUP boot floppy. It has worked flawlessly for me so far. As I can't find the original reference, I'll give you an example of its use:

Like I said, this might be a new approach for making a more flexible Puppy boot disk. This could be done by using a menu to choose the boot parameters that you want. I'm still thinking about it... I'm open to any ideas that you or anyone else has.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

EDIT: Just found the 'search' button in Wiki - it's at the bottom of the page. The reference to LINLD.COM is here - last entry on the page.

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